Prof Peter Scott - research

Research interests

My research focuses on what it means to speak of the goodness of God in the ways of the world. It has two theological themes and two political perspectives:

* The two themes are the doctrines of God and humanity

*The two perspectives are the ecological-natural-technological and the global-democratic.

I am interested in research enquiries that link one or both of these loci to one or both of these perspectives. For example, I have published extensively in the theology of nature, seeking to develop the doctrine of God in ecological directions. I am currently developing a trinitarian anthropology that focuses on human action: how is human action to be understood by reference to the non-human and the global horizon? It follows that some developments in bioethics and science studies are of interest to me as are debates over technology and democracy. Most especially, the issues of political representation and political authority are moving to the centre of my research: what happens to "democracy" when the centrality of the human and the nation-state are challenged? How do theological resources on representation lead or reshape such considerations?

I wish to supervise doctoral students interested in engaging in such interdisciplinary theological work, or who wish to work in any of the research interests given below. Please contact me to begin a conversation.

Research interests: Political and liberation theologies, theology of nature/doctrine of creation, theology of right, theologies and philosophies of technology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Marxism.

Additional Information

Peter Manley Scott is Samuel Ferguson Professor of Applied Theology & Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute at the University of Manchester, UK.

He is author of Theology, Ideology and Liberation (CUP, 1994; paperback edition 2009), A Political Theology of Nature (CUP, 2003), and Anti-human Theology: Nature, Technology and the Postnatural (SCM, 2010).

He is co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Blackwell, 2004; paperback edition 2006), Future Perfect (Continuum, 2006), Re-moralising Britain? (Continuum, 2008), Nature Space & the Sacred (Ashgate 2009) and Ecotheology 11:2 special issue on theology and technology (Equinox, 2006), the International Journal of Public Theology 2:1 special issue on urban theology (Brill, 2008), Systematic Theology and Climate Change (Routledge, 2014), and At Home in the Future (LIT Verlag, 2014).

His research is to be found at the intersection between theology and studies of nature, technology and society, politics and salvation, and he is widely published on these topics. His current research is towards a monograph, A theology of postnatural right; he also writing a book on Marx and Theology (Bloomsbury).